What does one purchase after owning horns?

Large active ATC's or PMC's used will do the trick of integrating bass and sounding dynamic and articulate like horns.

" but only horns have the uncompressed sound that many want and are willing to make sacrifices in other areas to get . "

Genelec and ATC replaced horn (Altec604, Westlake, etc) main monitors in high-end recording studios starting in the mid 80's. Main monitors are used to impress the clients (rock stars like Police, INXS, Peter Gabriel,Pink Floyd etc etc. would hear themselves on these designs and modern rock stars still do so today)

So while as a generality it is true that nothing sounds dynamic like horns, you can find dynamic uncompressed sound that is on par with horns in a few select cases. Studio managers did not take a step backward when they replaced older horns - in fact the newer designs performed at similar SPL and dynamics with better integration of bass and without the inherent distortion that you get from horns at elevated levels (non-linear compression drive effects).

I would add that it is advances in technology that allowed conventional drivers to compete with horns in terms of dynamics: ferrofluid in tweeters, massive voice coils and high powered solid state electronics. In order to compete with horn inherent high SPL and dynamics, the newer systems were often actively powered with outboard individual Crown high power amplifiers dedicated to each driver. Modern active speaker systems have evolved so that the multiple driver dedicated amplifiers are built directly in to the speaker.

Here is a history

Main Monitors

Horn systems have also improved and modern Westlake's with TAD drivers are amazingly good too as are JBL's or Meyers. My comments here are not to bash horns at all! Just mentioning alternatives - that is all. Although I would add that you can do far far better than an Altec 604 these days. Altec 604 is no longer competitive IMHO.

Panel speakers suffer from having a diaphragm that is larger than the wavelengths being reproduced. This results in comb filtering and a highly variable with frequency and an uneven sound field with listener position. This makes them unsuitable for main monitors.

"Painting with a broad brush Shadorne, not all panel speakers use one panel and suffers from such"

All panels use diaphragms that are much larger than is desirable for broad even dispersion of their entire frequency range, small panels reduce the issues but none are entirely free of these problems. The big advantage of a well designed three or four way conventional speaker is that each driver can operate in a frequency range where it acts as a point source.

Soundlabs are awesome. In fact Gordon J. Holt used large Soundlabs for many years which attests to their sound quality.

I just offered some alternatives to horns as the op asked. I am not exactly sure if those who describe ATC and Genelec as S*** have actually heard them but then again there is no accounting for personal taste in this hobby.

Weseixas,

I see you are just a troll trying to pick a fight. I will not waste any more time on you. Have a good day.

Unsound,

I agree entirely. If horns were so very much better than everything else then why are they marginalized to such a small segment of the market. Horns are mostly used in PA and live sound reinforcement. While in the home, they are rare enough to be considered a novelty. Of course, horns can sound outstanding...but the zealots here insist there is nothing else that can even be considered as an alternative???

Is it just me? I read the title of this thread, "What does one purchase after owning horns?", and thought the owner was looking for alternatives to horns but a speaker that retained many of the great things the OP likes about horns?

(and English is my first language...)

However somehow we ended up with a toddlers fight in a sandbox? I wonder how any of this is intended to help the OP or is it simply an outlet for those with anger management issues and baggage/agendas from previous threads (the last sandbox fight)?

Here is some info on horns. Non-linear distortion in the compression chamber rises with output as well as with higher frequency and is exacerbated by long horns with less flare. Distortion can be as high as 20% or more in 2nd and 3rd order harmonics.

The non-linear characteristics may explain some of the challenges of integrating horns with a conventional (linear) sub woofer. As the level of the music changes from high to low SPL there will be a sweetspot where the balance is good. However, outside this range the balance may be off by a little.

This is simply for information JBL

The OP might consider horn designs with a much wider flare (or simply a waveguide) and accept a lower efficiency design (less compression). These type designs are more likely to integrate better with the bass over a broader range of operating SPL levels (less changes in tonal balance).

Shadorne you do not mention SPL level for conventional design distort much when near max SPL.

John - yes that is true. I was just passing on info on horns. In conventional designs if you need higher SPL and need good linearity then big and beefy drivers with pro voice coils and magnets are the ticket. In the case of horns however there is a fundamental difference because the non-linearity comes from non-linear air compression in the chamber - so it is an inherent issue that can change the way the sound is compressed as a function of SPL and frequency. As I mentioned, I think it is clear from the JBL paper - these problems are more significant in very high efficiency horns (greater compression) and long horns with narrow flare. AG horns are both efficient and have a long narrow flare - so it may help the OP achieve better bass integration to consider other less "aggressive" horn designs with wider flare and lower efficiency.

Just a thought....every design has its pros and cons and the OP has clearly stated why horns sound so good (the pros).

martin collums measured THD at 110 db! the midhorn had only around 0,1% THD and the tweeter 0,3%. I doubt even a speaker like wilson's alexandria could compete with that.

That is exceptional compared to most conventional speakers. It suggests they got the horn design well optimized. Is there a link to the article?

Since the discussion revolves around dynamics.

I'll just mention that the Sheffield Labs Drum Track XRCD is a good way to compare speakers for dynamics. Horns or no horns it takes considerable engineering/technology to play these drum tracks cleanly (no audible distortion) with brief but sustained levels over 110 db SPL at the listener, as measured with a Radio Shack meter on C weighted.